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| Dialectical thought is related to vulgar thinking in the same way that a motion picture is related to a still photograph. The motion picture does not outlaw the still photograph but combines a series of them according to the laws of motion. | | Leon Trotsky | |
| If a psychiatric and scientific inquiry were to be made upon our rulers, mankind would be appalled at the disclosures. | | Alfred Korzybski | |
| If we consider that all we deal with represents constantly changing sub-microscopic, interrelated processes which are not, and cannot be ‘identical with themselves’, the old dictum that ‘everything is identical with itself’ becomes in [today’s understanding of the universe] a principle invariably false to facts. | | Alfred Korzybski | |
| In the rough, a symbol is a sign that stands for something… Before a noise, etc., may become a symbol, something must exist for the symbol to symbolize. | | Alfred Korzybski | |
| It is now no mystery that some quite influential ‘philosophers’ were ‘mentally’ ill. | | Alfred Korzybski | |
| Let us repeat the two crucial negative premises as established firmly by all human experience: (1) Words are not the things we are speaking about; and (2) There is no such thing as an object in absolute isolation. | | Alfred Korzybski | |
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| Logic is like the sword--those who appeal to it shall perish by it. | | Samuel Butler | |
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| Logic takes care of itself; all we have to do is to look and see how it does it | | Ludwig Wittgenstein | |
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| Man has such a predilection for systems and abstract deductions that he is ready to distort the truth intentionally, he is ready to deny the evidence of his senses only to justify his logic | | Fyodor Dostoyevsky | |
| No mistake is more common and more fatuous than appealing to logic in cases which are beyond her jurisdiction. | | Samuel Butler | |
| Often, the less there is to justify a traditional custom, the harder it is to get rid of it. | | Mark Twain | |
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| The dialectic is neither fiction nor mysticism, but a science of the forms of our thinking insofar as it is not limited to the daily problems of life but attempts to arrive at an understanding of more complicated and drawn-out processes. The dialectic and formal logic bear a relationship similar to that between higher and lower mathematics. | | Leon Trotsky | |
| The dialectic is neither fiction or mysticism, but a science of the forms of our thinking insofar as it is not limited to the daily problems of life but attempts to arrive at an understanding of more complicated and drawn-out processes. The dialectic and formal logic bear a relationship similar to that between higher and lower mathematics. | | Leon Trotsky | |
| Thus, we see that one of the obvious origins of human disagreement lies in the use of noises for words. | | Alfred Korzybski | |
| We should not be surprised that we find meaningless noises in the foundation of many old ‘philosophies’, and that from them arise most of the old ‘philosophical’ fights and arguments. | | Alfred Korzybski | |